Why We Tolerate Bullying, Hazing, and Abuse

Why is bullying in schools and in the workplace an ongoing problem? How about hazing in teamsports? What about instances of physical and sexual abuse? Why don’t people intervene?

These are big problems and often people know that they are going on, but they either accept them, as in bullying or hazing (“boys will be boys”), they just look the other way, or they deny that it is a problem. What is going on psychologically?

A lot of the problem is due to how we think about things. We use mental shortcuts, what psychologists call “heuristics,” to aid us in our thinking. We also have a tendency to expend as little cognitive energy as possible trying to figure things out. As a result of this “cognitive laziness,” we often don’t investigate when we suspect that bullying is taking place (“They are just horsing around”).

Sometimes we just don’t recognize the signs of bullying or we form favorable initial impressions of a bully, and then discount when we observe them bullying or harassing someone. I’ve termed this the “Eddie Haskell Effect”—the bully, who appears nice to outsiders, bullies when not being observed, and complaints about the bully are discounted (“It can’t be Eddie!”).

Of course the bystander effect also explains why we tolerate misbehavior. First, with bullies, bystanders may not intervene for fear of being bullied themselves. In instances of hazing or other sorts of abuse, there is an assumption that “someone else”—some authority—will take care of it. Finally, there is the “I don’t want to get involved” factor—it’s too much work, too much of an inconvenience, etc.

So, what is the answer? How can we help to stop instances of bullying and abuse? I call it the two C’s: Cognition and Courage. We need to get involved and critically analyze the situation. Engage our brain, investigate, and call out instances of misbehavior. Then, we need the courage to take action, realizing that it is our duty to intervene.

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I grew up in a small and very rough mining town in the middle-of-nowhere, apartheid-era South Africa. Violence there was considered a pretty everyday happening, and indeed it seemed that those who did not behave in a casually violent manner were considered "deserving" of violence. But the one thing that always puzzled me was the the attendant victim-blaming; whenever some nerdy guy got beaten up at school or in a bar or wherever people who witnessed the event would simply shrug their shoulders and say something to the effect of "he must have done something to deserve that".

Not sure if this contributes anything useful, but this post just reminded me of that.

It seems that the victims targeted by bullies are usually those individuals who are abnormal, so to speak. They don't reflect whatever is "normal" for the particular culture they inhabit.

Considering this, I would suggest another reason why bullying is glossed over: Though people may not approve of it explicitly, there may be some intuitive belief that the bully is acting to protect the status quo by forcing the victim back in the boundaries built by cultural norms.

I will go one step further about the comments written here. We focus on the victim and what he or she is doing wrong because inwardly we don't want to be that victim...we don't want to identify with him/her, we don't want to be viewed as different in any way because we don't want to be the next target of violence. Better that we should be the "walking dead"...all marching together in unison like zombies. Abuse, whether it is sexual, physical, emotional, verbal or psychological, is really an act of violence toward another human being. We don't want to identify with the victim because to do so would be admitting to ourselves that being "different" is bad...wrong. Hell, we grew up brainwashed from the day we were born to believe that being different was a bad thing. That just being "ourselves" was WRONG from our own parents, teachers, priests, etc. So we stopped being ourselves and began being whatever was expected of us to be. We disowned ourselves. It is a survival mechanism. So, at some point, we actually begin to believe that all the abuse we ever suffered in our own lives (and all the abuse we see around us) is OK. Nobody ever came to our aid as children, teens...so why should we come to the aid of others? It will only escalate matters and make things worse. We don't even "snitch" on abusers/bullies (both are synonomous) because we are afraid of retaliation...afraid no one will protect us (cause everyone is literally "numbed" to abuse). Abuse for whatever reason is NOT OK. I believe that abusers are abusive because they themselves were the target of some form of abuse...and that by abusing others they get to unleash their own pent-up rage...at themselves for not being able to stand up to their own abuser...they get to release their own self loathing at having been vulnerable, helpless, unsuspecting victims of someone else's abuse (dad, stepdad, uncles, friends of family, etc.). So they pick on someone smaller, weaker...someone resembling themselves at the time they got abused...so they are actually "re-abusing" themselves when they abuse another. Pretty sick shit...and this must happen on a huge scale to a lot of men...cause look at our society.

Recently I overheard a conversation that made my skin crawl. A crime was committed against a child and no one ...the other students, chaperones or other parents that heard the rumor about the crime got involved. over 50 people knew and NOT ONE SPOKE UP! I was incredulous and think something else is going wrong like a complete lack of empathy if it isn't your child or a culture of fear that the group will be harmed for bullying like a program cut or something because WHY ELSE DONT EVEN ADULTS DO THE RIGHT THING???

Apparently, Our school had marching band camp in Aug. During camp a child was sodomized with a snapple bottle after he refused to apologize for calling someone a nigger. a group of children witnessed the sodomy I am told, and the entire marching band knew what had happened. The sodomized child was upset but the group of students convinced the boy he needed to keep quiet about it if he wanted to have friends and after all it was payback for his wrong. Plus they told him his parents would make a big deal about it and it would be all over the school and newspaper and everyone would know he was sodomized with a snapple bottle.

Not one of the marching band kids reported it. Not one of the adult chaperones that heard rumor of it reported it. One child went home and told his mom and was told to not get involved it didn't affect him so he should stay out of it. 7 months later I was driving two boys home and heard the story rumor (one boy asking if it were true and the other saying yes) I was horrified!

I immediately contacted the marching band director and told him what I had heard.

Because it is not their problem, pure and simple. Because it is best being part of the winning group than siding with the victim. Because in the game of he says/she says, it is the victim who generally exhibits signs of distress and is so emotionally affected that they can't be rational about what is going on. And because a bully operates covertly, whereas victims do not.